Images From Baja Sur, Part 1

Okay, we've been back in Northern Nevada--God's Country--for five days now. Where to begin? Nothing could be bigger, of course, than the news that Melissa has said she'll marry me (man, I still can't get over that). But a lot went on during our quick trip to Baja, and as I promised, here are just a few of the many pictures taken. I'm going to have to break this up into one or two parts, because it seems that blogger isn't able to handle more than about ten pictures in a single post.

We arrived at the airport at San Jose del Cabo at about two in the afternoon last Thursday. As I reported last week, a snowstorm was supposedly bearing down on Reno as we left. When we landed the temperature was in the 90's. We stepped off the plane onto the tarmac and into an oven-like heat. Melissa, who has been suffering with Reno's wintry temperatures these last few months, absolutely loved it.

Southern Baja is mountainous and surprisingly diverse from a botanical point of view. While the deserts of the Great Basin (where we live) are made up of vast expanses of sagebrush, Baja's deserts feature dozens of varieties of wildly-shaped cacti and thick brush. I found the landscape unbelievably beautiful, particularly when you throw in the sunshine and crystal-blue oceans.

Of course, the first necessary move was the changing of shoes to sandals. Since we were in line at Mexican Customs and Immigration for well over two hours, there was plenty of time to make that change.

Between Customs and our lengthy wait for our shuttle, we didn't make it to our destination, the Presidente Intercontinental Resort, until late in the afternoon. But as you can see, it was worth the wait.

The Presidente is one of those all-inclusive places. It's in San Jose, about twenty miles up the coast from the more famous Cabo San Lucas, and unlike San Lucas' year-round Spring Break atmosphere, it's much more of a traditional Mexican town that just happens to contain several posh beach resorts. Here's a shot of the Presidente's pool area, which was immediately outside our sliding glass door. Not bad, eh?



Melissa likes this next picture. It's my reaction to finding out that part of the all-inclusive plan was an unlimited supply of Pina Coladas.

One of Melissa's concessions to me that we make this something of an active vacation was a quick bike trip around San Jose that was organized by the resort. At least we expected it to be a short trip. I won't publish any of the really gritty pictures of us trying to work our way up the town's deceptively steep hills. But here's a cute one of Melissa on a bike just before the ride started.


On Saturday, the morning of our anniversary, we went over to Cabo San Lucas and hopped on the Cabo Rey, a huge whale-watching boat, to look for the large California Grays that congregate in the waters off Cabo in the Winter months. Notice I am not wearing a hat, a decision that my scalp came to rue as a result of the tropical sun. But the trip itself was fantastic.

Here's a shot taken from the boat of the Playa del Amor, or Lover's Beach, located among the rocks at Finisterra, Land's End at the very southern tip of the Baja peninsula. The water on the side of the beach from which the picture was taken is the Sea of Cortez, but the water visible on the other side is the Pacific Ocean. This is also a fantastic area for snorkeling and scuba-diving, but we found this out a little to late as I will detail in Part 2 or 3.

One thing that really amazed me was the clarity and color of the water. The pictures look great, but even they don't quite capture it.

There were quite a few whale sitings from the deck of the Cabo Rey, but the elusive giants always proved too quick for my camera. I did, however, manage to get this nice shot of the Playa Chilena, where Melissa and I did a little snorkeling.

I'm growing increasingly frustrated with Blogspot's inability to post more than a handful of pictures, so I'm going to end part 1 at this point. There's lots more to come in at least one separate post. And then, one day soon, I will go back to snarky little posts about things that peeve me.